Characters: Rukia, Hinamori
Summary
: Hinamori teaches Rukia how to walk on a wire fifty feet above the ground when there's no net to catch her.
Pairings
: None
Warnings/Spoilers
: Spoilers for Deicide arc
Timeline
: post-Deicide arc; during time skip
Author's Note
: Just a short drabble—I had an idea, I guess. Rukia and Hinamori are both coping with stuff (the former with losing Ichigo and the latter with coming to grips with Aizen's betrayal), so I thought this might be a point of contact for them.
Disclaimer
: I don't own Bleach.


Brown eyes are feverishly animated as the girl on the hospital bed forms a triangle with her hand, fingertips touching. "The important thing to remember, Kuchiki-san, is to smile, or to at least not seem terribly upset—well, that's hardly all of it."

Sitting on the edge of Hinamori's bed, Rukia nods silently and says nothing—better to let the other talk. She's never been terribly close to Renji's friend, but she finds the young lieutenant's company soothing, even if the strange gleam in Hinamori's eyes is no less disturbing than it's ever been.

"Don't seem visibly upset in front of others, not if you can help it. They all start to avoid you if you do that." Hinamori grimaces, an oddly pretty, but still macabre gesture. "I found that one out the hard way. No one wants to associate with one they think is crazy, not unless they're a little nuts themselves. You'd think you'd get plenty of those around here, but nothing doing."

Rukia wonders if this is why Hinamori's hospital room is always empty when she comes inside.

Hinamori chatters on, flicking her hand dismissively, glassy eyes gazing at the ceiling.

Then, the eyes clear and settle on Rukia again. Hinamori smiles her sweetest smile, and it's made of aching not-quite-madness, but close enough that Rukia can see, for a moment, why everyone seems to think Hinamori's lost it.

"But the most important thing—" she seems to have forgotten that she already said something else was the most important aspect "—is that you know that no one else is going to catch you. You have to keep yourself from falling. No one will catch you, and you know it's not the fall that kills you, it's the landing at the end when reality hits you."

Hinamori lies back in bed, closing her eyes and humming off-key, and suddenly cold all over Rukia tip-toes out of the room, bringing the door shut behind her gently.

She didn't need to hear any more than that to know that Hinamori let herself fall. That she let the sharp landing at the bottom kill her. And that maybe she didn't try to break her own fall.

And Rukia knows she doesn't want to be like her, like the humming, glassy-eyed girl whom hardly anyone visits.